by George Koch in Western View from Winter 2012 issue As an international ski writer who spends virtually all winter on the slopes (it’s charming how many people I meet think that’s not a lie), I’m frequently asked whether I prefer heli-skiing or snowcat skiing. Canadian, European and American skiers are equally curious, although coming at it from different angles. Europeans, for… More »
Sunshine Village’s firing last winter of seven ski patrollers, including two of its senior-most personnel, hit the skiing world like a string of explosives shattering a cornice. The appearance of heavy-handed ski resort owners protecting a wayward family member by punishing hard-working and public-spirited employees seemed like a ready-made morality tale. It stirred popular passions, becoming the topic of innumerable chairlift-ride, lunchtime… More »
Several readers responded to my article of two years earlier (Is it all doom and gloom? – Fall 2007) that had circumspectly raised questions about (okay, joyously heaped scorn upon) the dire predictions of global warming believers. The letters were breathtaking in their scientific rigour and commitment to intellectual diversity. The one termed me “misguided… More »
This winter the usual early-season snows largely bypassed Whistler- Blackcomb even as Victoria and Vancouver suffered havoc. Extended cold, a rain crust, a dangerous layer of faceted crystals and lastly heavy wind-loaded snowfalls created what avalanche expert Chris Stethem later described as a once-in-30-years “continental snowpack”—shallow and dangerous, akin to the Alberta Rockies. “We found… More »
Alert readers will recall my chronicling of the Kicking Horse story since it began as a glimmer in the eye of Vancouver skier-visionary Oberto Oberti. I was an instant convert on the late spring day in 1998 when Oberti and local heli-skiing operator Rudi Gertsch flew me onto a peak thousands of feet above the… More »
Helicopters stood in silence, flags fluttered and people milled about on the broad plateau beneath Saddle Mountain, chatting or munching smoked salmon and other treats from a vast buffet spread on improvised tables carved from the compact spring snow. Mike Wiegele stood in the stiff April breeze and officially announced that Saddle Mountain Resort had… More »
A ski helmet first went onto my head way back in 2000, when helmets were just this side of exotica. So why does the hectoring of helmet zealots for mandatory universal usage bother me so much? There’s a triplet of reasons. First off, it fails the utility test—helmets aren’t needed by all skiers under all… More »
It was a magical January day with Mica Heli Guides high in the Rocky Mountains northeast of Revelstoke. We were pausing between huge pitches to gaze at the mountains ringing us. Someone pointed out a hanging glacier clinging to an enormous mountainside, its toe cleaved into translucent blue seracs that periodically crack and tumble down… More »
There’s a weird dichotomy in the way skiing markets itself. Our sport’s image is self-consciously elitist. Glitz, glam and bling. Celebrity athletes performing superhuman record-setting feats on the racecourse or off the cliff face. Resorts announcing multi-million-dollar (or half-billion-dollar) investments for ultra-modern conveyances, 300-hp snowcats, 200-room condo-hotels or Soviet-sized mountain restaurants. Super-cool tricked-out customers whisked… More »
In mid-August, the 20-year-long era of the company that operates Whistler-Blackcomb, Mont Tremblant, Panorama, Blue Mountain and numerous other resorts came to an end, or turned a page in its history. After appearing to have flatlined in the face of a rising Canadian dollar, stagnating skier-visits and a scarcity of lucrative new development projects, publicly… More »
Loading ...